Adapting, Adjusting, and Avoiding
by Cat Lunanoff
Summary: High School!AU with several of my OCs. Hopefully not much romance. Family-like!Guardians. Touch of angst (hopefully) but other genres would be friendship and hurt/comfort. Rated T because of one OC who has a friggin sailor mouth that cannot be silenced. The title sucks, anyone got a better one?
1. Chapter 1- A New School

**Adapting, Adjusting, and Avoiding||Chapter 1- A New School**

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_Disclaimer: I don't own RotG, only my OCs and the plot (which hopefully isn't stupid)_

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**__****_A Quick Note: Pay attention to the time and date later, they're VERY important. Not so much now, more in future chapters (starts in ch3 or so) because they show major time-skips. Enjoy!_**

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**_September 10th, 6:57am_**

Jack stepped out of his front door, almost nervously. He waved backwards over his shoulder at the family members standing in the doorway behind him that were all smiling encouragingly. "Goodbye Jack, have a great first day at school!" a petite woman in bright clothing called after him, wiping her hands on her apron.

"Thanks Aunt Tooth! See you later!"

His little brother Sandy pushed his way through the legs of his family members and took Jack's hand, yawning and blinking sleepily. He was mute, and he had narcolepsy, so he used sign language and always carried around a little golden dolphin pillow pet. He was small, about two and a half feet tall, and he had golden yellow hair that stuck up in messy spikes all over from constant bed-head. He wore a yellow onesie with little feet on it, and it had a few gold sparkling threads in it resembling sand.

His older brother, Ezekiel Aster, refused to tell anyone his first name, going by E. Aster at his job, and his friends and family called him Easter as a joke. When he was young, he had had a fascination with Easter and the Easter Bunny, and he had thought it was funny. Now that he was in his mid-twenties, he didn't think it was so cute anymore. He had dull brown hair and large front teeth and ears, making him look slightly geeky, but they didn't hinder him nor help him. They simply _were_. He was very tall, six feet high, and looked like he was looking down at everyone; the reality was that he had a very stiff neck and avoided bending it to extremes, so he simply looked down with his eyes at people, being taller than most. It was not meant to be insulting.

He was a businessman, very organized and neat, and he was a great and inspiring leader, giving the best pep talks and direction any company could ever ask for. In his spare time, he painted, and although he insisted he had given up on childish beliefs, he still remained firm on the subject of painting the Easter eggs by hand, and he secretly hunted for the Easter Bunny, every year, without fail.

He walked out of the door with Jack and Sandy, briefcase in hand. He had spent some time away from home due to work, and had developed a prominent Australian accent, always choosing to go there on business trips when offered the opportunity.

He ruffled Sandy's hair and messed up Jack's too. Jack scowled at him and started combing his hair with his free hand, knowing all too well what happened if he let go of Sandy's hand. Sandy didn't even notice, and he probably wouldn't have cared if he did; it appeared he had fallen asleep standing again. Jack heaved a sigh and picked him up, making sure his pillow pet was in his backpack and his backpack was buckled across his chest. It had fallen off in the past when it wasn't buckled. Sandy wrapped an arm around Jack's neck and started sucking his thumb. Jack rolled his eyes but smiled. "Ah, Sandy."

"See you after school, mate. Don't get in any trouble today, you hear?"

The smile dropped off Jack's face. "Yeah, yeah, Easter. You know I won't."

It had been a one-time thing. Jack was usually a troublemaker, a jokester that rarely got in trouble, but last year he had pushed it too far by swapping the teacher's chalk with her Chapstick, so she wrote on the board with Vaseline and coated her lips in the dusty white powder. That, combined with dying her spare wig hot pink and making sure her original one got ruined, plus every other minor thing he had done over the three years he'd been going to the high school, pushed her over the edge. She had screamed, snapped her yardstick over her knee, and shrieked at him to go to the principal's office. She had followed him through the halls, screaming at him some nasty things that should not be repeated, until he got to the office, where he had been informed he would not be welcome back next year.

Jack started walking down the sidewalk, Sandy in tow, and Aster went the opposite way.

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**_September 10th, 6:57am_**

Nicholas, Jack's grandfather, watched him go from the window, lines of concern etched into his kind face. He was a rather large man, seven feet tall and kind of overweight, but he was also built like a long-retired bodybuilder. He had grown up in Russia and still went back to visit every now and then; his accent was so strong, nobody could understand him when he was agitated, and he would slip into Russian when he got furious. He had tattoos on his forearms, but he kept them covered with his shirtsleeves at all times, so no one knew what they were. He claimed they were a stupid mistake from when he was younger, for a Halloween costume, and he had decided he would leave them as a reminder of his stupidity once the novelty wore off. He had a long white beard, and when the children were younger, he had been the one to dress up as Santa Claus, knowing they were peeking. Or rather, knowing Jack was peeking; his brothers only tried to stay up to see Santa when he convinced them to.

Nicholas sighed heavily. "I hope that boy knows what he is getting into."

Jack's aunt, Tooth, had an unusual but apt name. Her full name was Toothiana, a pretty but uncommon choice on her parents' part. No one knew how she was related to them, she just _was_.

She was a dentist, the best in her field. People were recommended her when they dearly needed help outside of their dentist's skill range. She was deft and swift, and even children enjoyed coming to her; every time she did dental work on them or simply checked over their teeth, she would give them a quarter and a small stuffed toy. Tooth also had lower prices than other dentists, despite being the best. She simply didn't need as much training and nurses as some, preferring to work with only a few nurses she loved like family.

She had tanned skin and shoulder-length brown hair that she had dyed, streaks of turquoise and green and magenta running through chocolate, the same colors as her scrubs and a large amount of her clothes. She was kind and had a sweet, high voice, soothing to all. It was a mystery that she hadn't found a husband, or even a boyfriend, but she said she preferred being single and she was already a mother to 'the boys', as she affectionately called them. She was also talented in baking, and the boys were often welcomed home by a floury pat on the cheek and a cookie shoved in their mouths. Her age was unknown to them, the way she liked it.

Jack's mother had simply disappeared after Sandy's birth five years ago, and everyone's memories of her were almost nonexistent, except that she had beautiful brown hair and a sweet face. It was a mystery as to why she would leave, and Jack held quite a bit of bottled-up anger and resentment towards her for leaving them like that.

Jack's father had been the nicest soul one could meet, and he had passed peacefully in his sleep right after Sandy was born, having narcolepsy as well. He was found at his desk at home, unconscious, and he was rushed to the hospital, where he had remained in a comatose state until he just... _stopped_. He had silver hair, despite being a young man, and he had smile lines around his mouth and at the corners of his eyes. He was tall as well, explaining why Jack was 5'11". Jack had also inherited his odd hair color from him, having white hair. Once in a while, a blonde or brown streak would crop up, and he would viciously bleach it white. Jack's height and physical appearance felt like the only reminder he had left of his father.

The whole family had moved to Burgess, Pennsylvania, since Jack had been expelled from the small school. No one was greatly affected, but Jack was devastated. His father's ashes hung from a chain around his neck, in a tiny bottle. Most had been scattered to the wind, but everyone kept a small bit in a tiny crystal vial.

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**_September 10th, 7:01am_**

Alaska was where Jack had lived previously, and the warm weather in Burgess, somewhere between summer and autumn, was already making him sweat. He had all his school books in his black backpack, and they were heavy, making it worse. Caught up in his thoughts of how hot it was outside, he almost walked right past the kindergarten center. He walked backwards a few steps and went in the doors, still carrying Sandy.

He asked the woman at the front desk where the office was, and thanked her after he had received directions. He walked down the hallway, counting off doors._ One, two, three, fourth from the end on the left_, he repeated her directions in his head as he walked past still-empty classrooms. He was early, so he could talk to an administrator and Sandy's teachers about his... special needs. Sandy was still sleeping, clinging to Jack tightly. For a kindergartener, he had a killer grip on Jack's shirt. He knocked lightly on the door that had a large plaque reading **OFFICE** on it before pushing it open.

"Hello, welcome to the kindergarten center, how may I help you?" a teenage girl asked politely from behind the desk, standing to greet him.

"Oh, um-" he was distracted by her age. "I'm here to take my brother to school. But he has special needs, and I just wanted to double check, meet with his teachers. Accidents have happened in the past." Like that time Sandy had slept through a lockdown drill. And a test. And almost a fire drill. And getting on the bus home. And almost crossing the street.

She laughed, catching on to his uncertainty. "I look too young to be working here, I know. I volunteer before school starts, in the mornings and during my free periods. I'm the only administrator here right now. If you want, in about ten minutes the principal-"

"No, it's fine." He really was in no rush to talk to another principal any time soon.

"Sit down over here." She gestured to a low round table with a few chairs around it. They both sat in the tiny chairs and squeezed their knees under the table, Jack especially. The girl was about 5'4", he estimated. She didn't have to try as hard to fit.

She laughed at how uncomfortable he looked. "Sorry about that, I don't know why the teachers still keep this, somehow they use it all the time. But they _are_ all shorter than me, so maybe it makes sense to them."

He shook his head. "I'm so confused. It's like taking trigonometry all over again." He grinned and she smiled back, completely at ease.

"So, let me fill out this form. I'm assuming that's your little brother?" At a nod, she continued. "What's his name? Full."

"Um, my family doesn't go by our last name. We all gave ourselves different ones. But this is Sanderson Mansnoozie. Don't ask me, he picked it out."

"Okay. Age? I'm assuming five or so..."

"Yep."

"Any medical conditions? Probably not-"

"Actually, yes."

She looked up in surprise. "Really?"

It irritated him, that she would comment about it, and he spoke through gritted teeth. "Yes. Really." He calmed down a bit before he continued. "He has narcolepsy. My family has a history of it." He got a little choked up, thinking of his dad, but he cleared his throat. "He falls asleep often, and he tends to sleepwalk. He has his pillow pet in case he falls asleep at his desk, his backpack has to be strapped on with the clips-" he pried Sandy's hand free and shows her the latch across his chest, keeping the straps from falling off, "-or else it'll slide off, someone has to be holding his hand or he'll wander away, don't let him suck his thumb-" he pulled Sandy's hand away from his mouth, "-and be careful when you wake him up. He has lashed out at people before he woke up completely. It's better just to let him wake up on his own. It usually doesn't last this long, only a minute or two." Without realizing it, he was bouncing Sandy up and down gently and rubbing his back. Sandy's eyes fluttered open, then shut, then open again. He yawned massively, making Jack yawn too, in turn making the girl yawn. Sandy turned his head slowly, taking in his surroundings, then brought his hands up to his chest and his fingers fluttered, faster than the girl could see, but Jack understood perfectly. "Yeah Sandy, I'm explaining everything. I haven't gotten that far yet. Do you want to explain?" His fingers twisted out of habit, spelling the words as he spoke. Sandy nodded, his fingers twisting and intertwining and moving with incredible fluidity. Jack translated the sign language for the girl, Sandy's exact words. "_Hi, I'm Sandy. I have narcolepsy, and I can't talk. I speak using sign language, but I can hear perfectly fine_."

Jack explained further. "He can talk more complexly than other kids his age, since he has to use his hands. He can read, and write. As long as he has a white board, he can communicate with people who can't speak sign language. Actually, his board is in his backpack, along with his favorite markers. _Do not_ let anyone take one, or even borrow it. He will take the markers back forcefully. It happened." He didn't say that Sandy was overly protective of his markers because their dad left them to him before he died. That would be revealing too much. He couldn't reopen that wound, especially not to a stranger. He also didn't mention that the teacher who borrowed the marker ended up with a fractured wrist and had to be sent to the hospital.

"Okay, I think I got all of that. I-" The door swung open. "Oh, hi Mrs. Carmichael!"

Jack felt his jaw lock. She was _so_ similar to his last principal. He managed a smile and waved. "Hi."

Mrs. Carmichael smiled back warmly, making him feel better about leaving Sandy with her. "Hello. What's your name?"

The girl looked like someone hit her between the eyes and looked down at the table, tracing words with her fingertip on the plastic imitation-wood surface.

"Cassie, you didn't even think to ask him his name?"

She shook her head.

Jack loosened up a bit. "I'm Jack. I'm here to check with my little brother Sandy's teacher and make sure the school had the correct information."

"Okay. I'm a kindergarten teacher here. Do you know who he has?"

"Um, let me check." He dug through Sandy's bag and found the paper with all the information he needed. "He has you."

She clapped her hands together and dropped her bag in the floor, sitting in a small chair with them. "Great! What do I need to know?" With her eyes, she conveyed her true message. It was rude, but he perceived it as truly curious. _Medical condition? Special ed?_

"Narcolepsy, and he can't talk. I told... Cassie? Some important things about him."

"Can I hear it from you?" _So I don't miss anything important_.

"Sure. He can fall asleep-" he paused mid-sentence. He looked down at Sandy, who was tugging on his sleeve. "You want to explain?" Sandy nodded. Jack turned back to the teacher. "Can you read sign language?"

Mrs. Carmichael nodded. "I teach it and lead the club up at the high school." Jack was liking her more and more.

"Okay. Sandy, don't go as fast."

The little boy nodded and his hands moved slightly slower than before, as Jack held him on his lap. Mid-word, his hands went limp and he slumped back against Jack. The women jumped, a little alarmed, but Jack shook Sandy's shoulder, then blew in his ear as a last resort. Sandy started and almost hit Jack. "You fell asleep."

Sandy nodded and continued, both the teacher and Cassie taking notes.

Jack leaned back and looked at them. Mrs. Carmichael seemed nice enough, with red heels and a white blouse tucked into her black pencil skirt. She had her hair pulled back, but she looked nice. Also formal, but Sandy did well with formality.

Cassie was wearing all gray. Gray jeans, gray sweatshirt, gray shirt sticking out of the bottom of her sweatshirt, gray boots. She even had a gray headband pushing her hair back.

"Is that all?" The sound of a voice caught his attention.

He nodded, confident in Sandy. "You told them about the markers?" Sandy nodded. "Then that's everything. Thank you so much. What time does school end?"

"Two thirty."

"I'll be here to pick him up. Do I wait in the lobby, or..." he stopped, waiting for one of them to finish for him or say something else.

"The lobby is where most people wait."

"I'll be there. Sandy, you know my phone number?" Sandy nodded and signed it out. "Perfect. What time does it start?"

"You're signed up for the all-day, meaning it starts at eight o'clock, but we have a drop off center for teenagers who have to go to school."

"Thank you. Can I leave him here? I need to get going. I only have-" he checked his watch. "Ten minutes to get there."

Cassie panicked, setting down the little pad with Sandy's info and grabbing her bookbag, checking the time on her phone. "Oh my god you're right! I'm going to have to run!" She grabbed his wrist and pulled him from the chair as he set Sandy down.

"Sandy, beHAVE!" he yelled as Cassie pulled him out the office door.

Mrs. Carmichael smiled kindly and took Sandy's hand. "Come on Sandy, lets get you to the morning care program." They walked out of the office and down the hall, Sandy actually making it all the way without falling asleep.

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**_September 10th, 7:19am_**

"Slow down!" Jack yelled, stumbling along behind Cassie.

"We're going to be late!"

He took a deep breath of air and started sprinting, Cassie still holding his wrist. Soon he was the one dragging her, and they got to school with five minutes to spare. They huffed a bit, and most kids were milling around outside the building or clogging up the hallways. Jack saw a sign that said **OFFICE** and went up to the door, waving to Cassie as he walked in.

It was instantly silent and air-conditioned inside, and he felt much better. He walked up to the secretary, conscious of every squeak his old sneakers made against the tile floor. "Hi. I'm a new student, can you get my schedule for me?" He felt the urge to whisper instead of talking in a normal voice.

"Sure. Grade?" Her voice was nasally and annoying, and she sounded completely bored.

"Twelfth. Senior."

"First letter of your last name?"

"F." He twisted his fingers, signing his name over and over again with anxiety.

"Ah, Jack. Here you go. And a map of the school." She tapped on her keyboard and clicked on something on the screen he couldn't see from his vantage point.

The printer started up, the loud noise startling him. It spit out a few papers and she handed them to him."Here. Use the map to get to first period."

"Thank you." He looked at the map and his schedule. First period was in room 119, just down the hall. As his eyes wandered down the list and back and forth at the map, he realized every class was in a different room with a different teacher, unlike his old school, which housed every grade from kindergarten to twelfth, there was one or two teachers per grade depending on the number of kids in the group, and you stayed with that teacher from kindergarten to third grade, a different teacher for fourth grade, fifth grade to eighth another teacher, and ninth to twelfth with yet another teacher.

Jack liked this system better. You didn't have to put up with the same crabby old people all day, every day. You had to put up with _different_ crabby old people for short periods of time, and some only every other day.

He walked down the hall, looking for his locker and not paying much attention to anything else. It was 119-16, combo 49-10-45. "One nineteen dash sixteen, one nineteen dash sixteen," he muttered as he headed towards the locker. He spotted it from down the hall and sped over to it, ignoring the giggles and whispers. Some football jock was probably coming down the hallway.

He kept his head down as he walked, looking at his feet, schedule, locker, and back. He went over to the tall blue door and spun the dial to the right until he came to 49, spun left and past 49 and stopped at 10, then spun right and stopped at 45. _49-10-45_. He would have to remember that.

He loaded in all his textbooks and kept one notebook, a pen, and a folder in his backpack, along with his schedule and lunch. He zipped his backpack closed and put one headphone in his ear, leaning against the wall until the bell rang, a loud, annoying, artificial noise, unlike the bell back home- no, back in Alaska. This was home now. In Alaska, it had been a real old-fashioned school bell that someone hit with a tiny brass hammer and put directly into the cracking, barely functioning loudspeaker system. He shoved his headphone back in the pocket with the old, battered, silver iPod nano from 2006. His family couldn't afford anything newer, and they all shared, each person's music on their own playlist. They made an agreement not to go into each other's personal folders, but Jack was the only one that used it anymore. Aster had lost interest a few years ago and Jack claimed it as his own until he needed to share with Sandy.

He sat down in a desk in the back, the fifth row out of five, against the same wall as the door. The board was on the wall that ran perpendicular to the door, and the door was off center, so you would enter near the front of the class, directly in front of the teacher's desk if you were late. Jack pulled out his notebook and pen, twirling the pen over his fingers absentmindedly, worrying about Sandy.

A huge flock of girls walked in the door at once, before the teacher got to the room, and there were plenty of high-pitched squeals that made him wince. They stampeded towards him, a flurry of makeup and short skirts and hot pink high-heels.

It was terrifying.

He stayed firmly where he was, clicking his pen and starting to sketch in his notebook. Little lines, vague markings to indicate where everything went, it was going along perfectly until the girls all sat down at the same time in the surrounding desks with a simultaneous thud as they dropped their books on the desks and purses onto the floor. The loud noise made him jump, and he dragged the pen across the page, right through the face of his dad. He had been drawing him without realizing. Tears filled his eyes as he stared at the slash mark through his father's face, and they almost fell until he realized he was in school, and he needed his reputation to be a good one, or he could be at the bottom of the chain. And when you're at the bottom, you get eaten.

Jack didn't want to get eaten.

But he didn't want to be a vulture at the top either, one of the popular kids that picked on the bottom. He kinda wanted to be a... maybe a bunny? Or a fox. He wanted to be a snow fox, one of the white ones. Not a wolf or a coyote, but a peaceful fox that protected the bottom creatures, like the mice or grasshoppers, but could fight the big creatures if necessary. But he got the feel that in this school, there weren't a lot of middlemen. You were at the top, or the bottom.

The second bell rang, and he flipped the page, still on his thoughts of the social hierarchy as a food chain, populars at the top with the vultures and losers on the bottom with the mice.

That was about to change. Jack was going to be a middleman, and set an example. He was going to start with not being popular, but not a loser.

Good place to start.

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**A/N:**  
**Second story! Man, you guys are getting all my 'coming soon' and secret stories that I haven't mentioned on Wattpad yet. Luckyyy. Naw jk, they suck but I want to improve them and Wattpad-ers are getting really demanding, so I'm taking a short break from the site.**  
**I hope to upload a couple more stories, but I have a few where I want to finish before I upload because I'm bad with plot and they're very specific. This, I can deviate from a bit, since I don't have a definite end in mind. I hope you like it! A review would mean the _world_ to me.**


	2. Chapter 2- Awkward Trivia and a Mercedes

******Adapting, Adjusting, and Avoiding||Chapter 2- Awkward Trivia and a Mercedes**

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_Disclaimer: I own nothing but my plot, my OCs, and bad hair_

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**_S_****_eptember 10th, 7:31am_**

The teacher walked in, a young man with brown combed hair, a hot pink tie, and a suit. It was an odd combination, to say the least, but Jack figured maybe it was normal for Burgess. He wasn't in Alaska anymore, after all.

The teacher set down his briefcase in the dear and stood in front of the class. "Hello, class."

"Hello, Professor Walters," the class said in a monotone, most clearly bored.

"Alright," the teacher said, scanning the room for familiar faces. "It appears everyone here had me last year- oh, wait! We have a new student! Come up here and introduce yourself."

Jack looked around for a moment before realizing the teacher was talking about him. "Oh. Oh, yeah." He stood, his stuff still in his backpack, not trusting the girls back there. They were like piranhas in Prada. He walked towards the front of the class and stood there, unsure of what to do. "Um, my name is Jack." He stopped.

The female population of the class, which was a good eighty percent, started whispering to each other. He couldn't hear what they said.

The teacher cleared his throat, then raised his voice above the noises. "Settle down! Some of you may find the name Jack to be hot, and others may find this _particular_ Jack hot-" Jack's ears started heating up, and he shoved his hands in his pockets. The teacher continued, oblivious, "-but you will still show him respect. Let the man speak."

Jack again didn't realize he was talking about him. All of his teachers, friends, anyone older than him had simply referred to him as 'boy'. Occasionally 'that blasted hooligan', but that was not as common as the former. Professor Walters was treating him like an equal. "Oh, um, that's really it."

"You told us your first name," Walters drawled. "And only your first name."

Jack's eyes darted around nervously. "I'm not good at introducing myself. My name is Jack. Am I done here?" He was already anxious to be starting in a new school senior year, this was seriously not helping.

Unexpectedly, the class laughed at his response. The girls giggled in creepily high voices, but he heard some deep chuckles too, probably from some of the guys.

Jack pulled his pen from his pocket and started twirling it over his fingers as Walters spoke. "So, prompts?" Jack nodded. "What did you do this summer?"  
"Um, packed, fooled around with my friends, said goodbye to everyone. I moved into my house here yesterday."

"Where did you move from?"

"Alaska." His response was short, clipped.

"Why did you move here?" a girl in the class asked. She blended in with all the others.

"Personal reasons." He gritted his teeth, thinking of his old teacher.

"Do you play any sports?" a jock in the class called out skeptically.

Jack didn't look like much; he was stick skinny with a narrow frame, but he had beefed up a little in high school, getting pretty well-defined muscles without much effort that he hid under baggy sweatshirts. He had some previous... _issues_ that drove him to use the energy in a positive way, and he didn't like the attention. "Unless snowball fights count, then no. There aren't many contact sports played in Alaska. Plus my old school was too small to form a team and there was no other towns close enough to play against."

That shocked them into a short silence, though he didn't know why.

"Do you have any siblings?" the teacher asked to keep the ball rolling.

"Yes."

"Care to elaborate?"

"Not particularly." Jack shrugged, getting a few small laughs.

"Please explain a little more. We're just trying to get to know you."

Jack rolled his eyes. "Fine. A little brother, an older brother."

"How old?" a girl asked, probably hoping they were an age where she could date them.

"Five and twenty four."

"Um, opinions on Burgess?" A boy in the back asked.

"It's a nice little town. It's not Alaska, but it's nice. I have no idea how I'm going to survive the summer; I feel like I'm the wicked witch of the west and someone dumped a bucket of water on me." A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth as he waited for someone to get the reference.

That someone was Cassie, sitting in the back, by the windows. She laughed a little, then explained to the people that turned to look at her. "He means he feels like he's melting."

There was a collective chorus of 'oh's from the class.

"Haven't you seen the Wizard of Oz?" Jack asked, now grinning at Cassie as he almost dropped his pen.

Another small round of 'oh's.

"What's your family like?"

He shrugged. He lost track of who asked what question anymore. "It's okay. My grandpa is cool. If you see a seven foot tall man with a huge white beard, you either saw him or Santa. My aunt is a dentist. She's nice. My older brother works for some big company, I don't really know what exactly. My little brother is kinda cute. He's about this tall." Jack held his hand out at about knee height, maybe a little higher, and several girls 'aww'd.

"What about your parents?" a girl asked, leaning forward on her elbows. He noticed her more than anyone else. She was wearing all black, but she didn't seem goth. Her blonde hair fell messily to her shoulders from under her black beanie, streaked with black and red, and her eyes were startlingly gray.

Jack felt like his throat was closing. "That's none of your business," he snapped, immediately feeling bad for being so harsh, but the girl seemed fine with it.

"Okay Jack, sit down," Walters instructed.

Jack made his way to a different seat, one near Cassie, and pulled out his notebook again, avoiding the first page.

"Here is the materials list for this year..." the teacher said, writing on the chalkboard, and Jack dutifully scribbled what he wrote down, then snapped his book shut with a bang when the bell rang, out of the room and heading towards room 127 before anyone even realized he was gone.

* * *

**_September 10th, 8:11am_**

"My, you're here early," a female teacher said in surprise.

Jack just nodded and took a seat in the back again, towards the windows this time.

Cassie came in the door and spotted him right away. She came over and sat in the seat next to him. She reached across the aisle and rested her hand on his forearm, but he pulled away. "Jack, you know- well, I want to be your friend. Consider it. Please?"

He managed a faint smile. "Sure. Friends." His head was throbbing, one of his killer headaches again, both from memories and holding back so many tears this early in the morning, but he was determined not to show it. "Sorry, it's just a little weird. It's my first time in a new school."

"Don't worry, I can get the same way sometimes."

He smiled a bit more, their whispered conversation nice, better than most he'd ever had in Alaska. It was the conversation of two people who had shared a similar grief. "Thanks Cassie."

Then the pack of piranha girls stampeded in.

The settled around him, in the seats radiating out from him like rays of the sun with their leader clearly intending to sit where Cassie was. Her long fingernails clacked on the desk as she tapped her fingers, an obvious signal that she was losing patience with Cassie not moving out of the way for her.

* * *

**_September 10th, 8:12am_**

Cassie purposely started up a conversation, about something they wouldn't know about. _Maybe skateboarding? He could ride a board_. "Hey Jack, do you skateboard?"

He shook his head, that odd white hair swinging in front of his eyes. "Not enough smooth sidewalk in Alaska. It seemed cool though. If I ever thought I was going to move away, I had wished I could learn." His skin, only a shade pinker that his hair, turned slightly darker. "Sorry, that sounded nerdy, or bumpkin-y."

"Not at all. Do you play any sports? I know they asked in the other class-"

"I play hockey." A hint of his teeth showed in his mouth, and thinking back, she couldn't remember that he had any missing teeth or even gaps. "My aunt doesn't like it, but I played anyway. She actually went to games and cheered me on a lot, as long as I promised I would never get a tooth knocked out. She's a dentist," he explained. "And also sort of like a mom."

Cassie hesitated, knowing how prying and rude her next question would be; she recalled how it felt like someone punched you in the solar plexus and knocked the wind out of you, and closed her mouth before she could ask, even though she was burning with curiosity.

"Move." The head popular girl, Mercedes, had apparently run out of patience and was opting for the direct route.

"No thanks, I'm good here. Go sit with your posse over there, I think I'm about to choke from the perfume." She clutched at her throat and made gagging sounds.

Jack covered his mouth, hiding a smile and a laugh.

Mercedes pouted. "That wasn't very nice."

"Uh, _yeah_, that was the kind of the _point_."

Mercedes looked over at Jack and fluttered her false eyelashes. "Jackie, sweetie, Cassie was being mean to me. You don't want to sit near _her_, do you?" she muttered under her breath, "Gutter rat."

Jack didn't look at her for a moment, then looked around. "Oh, me? My name is Jack. No 'ee' sound at the end."

Mercedes looked a little flustered. "Oh, well, I figured I'd give you a nickname. Do you like it?" She leaned almost on Cassie's desk, showing off her chest.

Cassie wrinkled her nose. "Subtle, much?" she said under her breath.

"It sounds like a girl's name. Are you _sure_ you weren't talking to one of them?" He gestured to the sea of pink surrounding him.

Cassie snorted, then covered her mouth with her hand as Mercedes shot her one of her killer glares. "Get out of here," she hissed.

* * *

**_September 10th, 8:13am_**

Jack tugged on Cassie's sleeve and stood, moving away to the opposite side of the room and swinging his bag down on the desk next to him, smiling at Cassie and patting the seat. Mercedes took that as an invitation and sat next to him, pushing his books to the point of falling off the table before he snatched them away and held them to his chest. "I was saving that seat for Cassie," he grumbled, disliking the attention of the popular girl.

She rolled her eyes. "Puh-leeze, I'm _much_ better company than her. Did you know that her dad is an alcoholic?" She said it as if it was some huge terrible secret, like it would change his opinion of the first nice person he had encountered in Burgess.

He put his hand up to his mouth and mimicked shock, opening his eyes wide. "OH EM GEE!" He said in a cracking falsetto, imitating her. Then he dropped his voice back to its usual pitch, lower than a baritone but slightly higher than a bass. "As if that would change my opinion of her." He leaned back in his chair, smirking at the look of complete and utter shock on her plastic face.

"Bu- wha-" she spluttered, her face slowly turning purple with rage.

Cassie grinned, and as if reading each other's minds, they both moved to the middle-back of the room, sitting right next to each other.

* * *

**_September 10th, 8:14am_**

Cassie played with her fingers, her smile wavering. "So what did she say about me?"

"Nothing." But he didn't seem sure.

"Please? If she's spreading rumors about me, I want to know them," she pressed.

Jack shrugged as if it was no big deal. "She said your dad was an alcoholic. I don't really care. It's no one else's business, and it's not like it would change my opinion of you if it was true. And with as fake a face as she has, I bet her words are the same." Cassie was grateful for his respect. He probably _would_ look at her differently if he knew it was partially true. Her mom was the alcoholic, not her dad. Her dad was really nice, just meek, and he wouldn't stand up to his strong-willed wife, even for Cassie.

"Yeah. My dad is _not_ an alcoholic." A flash of white-hot anger shot through her, but she pushed it down before it got the best of her. She didn't want to scare off another new friend.

* * *

**_September 10th, 8:14am_**

"And I wouldn't judge you if he was." Jack shrugged. "Let's forget her." The topic of parents could lead to the topic of _his_ parents, somewhere he did _not_ want to go.

"Yeah. Do you like to read?"

Jack thought. He never really sat down and read, he was always hanging out with his friends, but he _did_ like reading privately. "Yeah, I guess so. I haven't read a lot though."

Cassie leaned forwards a bit eagerly. "Have you read _The Fault in Our Stars_? It broke my heart."

He thought. "Maybe. Um, with Hazel Waters and Augustus Grace?"

Cassie laughed. She had a cute laugh, complete with a tiny snort at the end. "I think you mean _Hazel_ Grace and _Augustus_ Waters. I literally cried. There are tear stains in my book, no joke."

"Oh. I think I read," he recalled a bit more and almost grimaced. "My ex-girlfriend's copy? The pages had teardrops on them."

"You didn't cry?"

Jack crossed his arms and sat up straighter. "Men don't cry over books." He looked around a bit. "But the preexisting marks helped," he added in a low voice.

* * *

**_September 10th, 8:15am_**

Cassie laughed again. _Maybe Jack would be a good friend._ They would have continued talking, but the teacher started writing on the chalkboard, making everyone wince internally.

Second period Spanish had officially begin. Joy.

* * *

**A/N:**  
**This chapter is the second longest in the story so far. I think 1,500 words will be the average, with only a few that are a lot longer or shorter.  
A round of applause for LionsandTrolls, people! She's my totally awesome and my first reviewer! *hugs*  
I might write another High school AU (or at least teenage/young adult!Guardians) with Rainbow Snowcone and Jack's little sister. I go with the headcanon that her name is Emma, it just seems to suit her; also, Jamie has a friend named Pippa and I wouldn't want the two names to be the same.  
Cat Lunanoff, signing off! *mock salute***


	3. Chapter 3- Summer Comes Early

******Adapting, Adjusting, and Avoiding||Chapter 3- Summer Comes Early**

******Chapter Rating: T for that one OC who doesn't shut up. And, a warning, no yaoi/slash/boyxboy, and Summers isn't gay. Think on that.**

* * *

_Disclaimer: I don't own RotG. Go ahead and rub it in. Yes, I made Jack have a food allergy, same as me. It sucks, especially in high school, and he isn't perfect._

* * *

**_September 10th, 9:24am_**

"Oh my god that class lasted forever!" Cassie said loudly, laughing as they walked into the cafeteria.

Jack strolled over to an unoccupied table in the corner and sat, motioning Cassie to sit across from him. She dropped her books on the table with a _bang_ and fell onto the bench, still laughing. All throughout Spanish, Jack had made fun of the teacher, and, having bad eyesight, the old woman yelled at a boy sitting a couple of seats in front of him.

Jack opened his paper bag and peeked inside, internally groaning. He pulled the PB&J sandwich out by a fingertip and nudged the tinfoil package over to the other side of the table. "You like peanut butter?" he asked Cassie, hoping she would trade.

Cassie snatched up the sandwich. "Yes! I love it! Is this PB&J?"

Jack nodded. _Wow, this girl certainly is enthusiastic once you get to know her. _"I'm allergic. I must have taken the wrong lunch or something this morning." He chuckled. "My brother must have gotten corned beef and mustard."

Cassie wrinkled her nose as she chewed, covering her mouth with her hand while she talked. "Ew. I hate corned beef. It's always so dry."

Jack laughed. "And I hate peanut butter. It smells like death." He paused and looked in the bag again. "Aaaaand I got applesauce." He pulled out a tiny container. It looked minuscule in his spindly fingers. Jack shrugged and peeled the top back, chugging it down like it was water before taking out an actual bottle of water- full-sized, not mini with fluoride, thankfully. He unscrewed the top and pulled off the little plastic ring, out of habit, swinging it around on his finger. He put the cap back on.

"You want cookies?" Cassie said through a mouthful of his sandwich. He nodded. Cassie tossed him an extremely large plastic bag of Oreos and he grinned, pulling each one in half and making double stacks. Cassie reached across and plucked the remaining cookie sides from his fingers, eating those too.

A student walked into the lunchroom, scanned the room for an empty table, and sighed, sitting at the emptiest, which happened to contain just Cassie and Jack. He sat all the way at the end, a cup of boiling liquid clutched between his hands, a pen and a couple of sheets of paper crammed into his pockets. He sipped his drink, made a face at it, and drank from it again.

Cassie scooted farther away from him, leaving almost the whole bench between them. She looked a little nervous to be near him, as if he was going to hit her. She leaned across the table and whispered, "That's John Summers. Don't mess with him. Once, he beat up the whole football team because they made him mad."

"Damn right," the boy grunted, gulping his drink, making Jack wonder if there might have been something other than water in it. "Bunch of dumbass jocks, thinking they can push _me_ around." He didn't move. His hood was pulled so far forward over his face you couldn't see it, and every bit of exposed skin was covered by red or black fabric, including leather gloves over his hands.

Cassie stiffened and paled. She hadn't realized he could hear her.

"That's right, girly, you're not as good a whisperer as you think. I can hear every word." He made no sign he'd spoken, just sipped his hot water calmly.

Jack eyed the newcomer and drank from his water bottle, distracted until a thin stream of water almost came out of his mouth. He pressed a finger just below the right side of his lower lip and swallowed. When he pulled his fingertip away, a tiny bit of water trickled down his chin despite his mouth being closed.

The boy, John, gave no indication he had seen it, but he spoke gruffly, sounding like he smoked. "First time without?" His words were vague and cryptic.

Jack grimaced. "Yeah." He didn't say more than that.

John actually moved, nodding his head as he raised the cup. He spoke, lips almost touching the rim. "Annoying, isn't it? I don't."

Jack nodded the tiniest bit, not really looking at him but focused on Cassie instead, who looked very confused. "What's going on?"

John didn't even have to look at her. "You never got a piercing." A statement, not a question. "You wouldn't know."

Jack fidgeted, uncomfortable. He had been torn between coming to school as 'normal' or being himself. He'd decided on 'normal'. No sense gaining a shady reputation on the first day. And maybe he could have left that other persona behind with his troublemaker attitude.

The way today was going, apparently not.

Cassie looked at Jack with interest and he looked away, into the lunch bag and wiping his face. "I didn't know you had a piercing. Where?" Her face pinked slightly, as if she realized how personal a question it was. "You don't have to answer that. Ignore my motormouth."

He shrugged. "I kinda wanted to leave it behind in Alaska. This is a fresh start for me."

* * *

**_September 10th, 9:29am_**

John snorted. "Shame. You should have left them." _You would have looked cuter_, he thought absentmindedly. His face turned red, and he was very glad no one could see his face and he hadn't said that out loud. It could throw off his whole appearance. No one would be afraid of him anymore, and when they weren't afraid, they bullied him.

He looked Jack over. Sweatshirt, jeans, sneakers. That was it. And a black backpack. Nothing really special there, except he actually had his pants where the manufacturers intended them to be worn instead of around his knees like everyone else in the school.

Jack himself, on the other hand, was different. Much, much different. His hair was a bleached white and his eyes were a shade of bright blue that gave John shivers. His skin was pale, very pale, and he was unusually tall, his fingers long and bony, extremely thin-looking. Honestly, it was obvious he had a piercing. How that Cassie girl had missed it was ridiculous. The lip one wasn't very noticeable until the water leaked out of it, though. Jack was rather attractive, and undoubtably straight.

John returned his attention to the coffee cup in his hands, the bitter taste grossing him out. But it was better than taking his prescribed meds, and he would rather drink three gallons of boiling lemon-herb water in one day than take pills that altered his thought processing and the hormones in his brain. The disgusting liquid, hot enough to burn his mouth if he wasn't used to it, was the only thing that calmed him down and allowed him to rationalize normally.

* * *

**_September 10th, 9:29am_**

Cassie glanced down the table nervously at John. He scared her, honestly. He had shown he wasn't above hurting girls before, and he was totally unpredictable. There was no doubt in her mind that he would readily do it again.

She felt guilty for taking Jack's lunch. She pulled out a pack of Whoppers (the malted milk ball candies) and slid them across the table to him. He probably couldn't eat Reeses's Peanut Butter Cups, with a peanut allergy.

"Can you wear your piercing tomorrow? I want to see what you looked like in Alaska." Her toes tapped habitually inside her boots, more out of ADHD than anything else.

Jack didn't seem to be too comfortable with the topic. "Once you see me, you won't be able to see me just like this anymore. The two images will merge or something, and I don't want to be labeled right away." He twisted his lips and took the offering of candy.

"Please? I won't treat you differently," she begged.

"I'll... let you guys see my eyes." John fidgeted, as if he hadn't meant to say that. "Begging isn't becoming, girly. And I don't want to hear you whine for the rest of the period." He seemed to fix Cassie with a glare, though she wouldn't know, as she couldn't see his eyes.

Jack hesitated. "Fine. But I'll do it next month sometime. Okay?"

"Deal," Cassie and John said in unison.

"So, John, what do you have next period?" Cassie asked nervously, hoping fervently he wouldn't say-

"Biology," he answered shortly. "And don't call me John."

Jack spoke up. "Then what do we call you?"

* * *

**_September 10th, 9:31_**

He paused, mad at himself for saying that much. "Summers," he said, his words clipped and tense. "Summers is fine." John was such a stupid name. Everyone called him it. He made them call him Summers instead, hacked the school computers and left notes on it in the rosters, did everything in his power to erase the name John. It was just a pseudonym anyway, a coverup for his real name, which no one knew, not even his adoptive parents. They honestly thought his name was John Summers, and he kept his last name instead of taking theirs because it had some sort of meaning to him.

Truthfully, he just thought it sounded cool. _Summers_. It reminded him of the first time he realized he was different. It was... complicated.

He sighed and drank more of his water, the bitter stuff burning his throat and clearing his head of his past.

* * *

**A/N:  
LionsandTrolls, you are awesome!**  
**Thanks to Alex Miller-Shadow! They reminded me to update (I wasn't positive many people liked it).**  
**I have up to chapter five written, if someone reminds me they want more/I should probably update (I could have updated yesterday and I'll update again on request) I will definitely upload more, no questions, unless I don't have a chapter ready, at which point I'll PM you and say that.  
I'm working on Where Do We Go From Here (I have 3+ arcs planned out) and ch6 of Jack/Cursed is in the works. I'm still taking OCs! I have one named Laura who will be major-ish and I can easily change her name! I will also just insert you, the user, under a name, if I like you a lot (P.S. LionsandTrolls, you up for being Claimed? ;) I could make a 'Lia' instead of Laura...)  
Sorry for the long A/N!  
This is Cat Lunanoff,, signing off for now... *mock salute***


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